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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24626371">Mirrors and Madness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrs_Hyperfixed/pseuds/Mrs_Hyperfixed'>Mrs_Hyperfixed</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Actor Mark One Shots [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Video Blogging RPF, Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series), markiplier - Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abandonment, Gen, Gunshot, Isolation, Madness, Self-Harm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 11:13:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,059</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24626371</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrs_Hyperfixed/pseuds/Mrs_Hyperfixed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Could you write a oneshot about y/n who is still stuck in the mirror, at the border of madness, and Actor Mark rescues them? Requested by Nekotsuki314159.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Actor Mark x (y/n), Actor/y/n</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Actor Mark One Shots [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794172</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Mirrors and Madness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>How many years has it been? You didn’t know, for your own sanity you had stopped counting the cycles of sunlight and moonlight that streamed down through the windows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the other side of this mirror, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just solid darkness that you were able to stand and sit on. You had watched this mansion fall into a decrepit ruin, home now only to spiders and their prey. Not even vagrants wanted to sleep in this place. They had tried, but as soon as they had glanced at the mirror and glimpsed a misty dark shape banging against the broken glass and making noiseless screams they had uttered shrieks of their own and ran for the hills. You had been well beyond subtlety at that point, the sight of another person had filled you with such an intense hope that you had lost all sense of self-control and started raving for them to help you. But no one ever visited this place twice, afraid of the silent demon in the mirror. You had become the town’s resident Bloody Mary.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All they saw was a dark shape, but on the other side of the mirror you could see yourself clearly. The colour of your skin, the length of your hair, your fingernails. You were still wearing the clothes you died in - a white shirt and simple dark trousers. Everything was still there on this side of the mirror, only visible to you. That made it worse, knowing that no one would ever see the person behind the dark shape. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, stuck in this hell, all you could do was think. And you had been thinking for so long. It had been one hundred years, not that you would have known that. And for the millionth time, you thought of Damien. You thought of the Colonel. You thought of Celene. You thought of Abe and Chef and Benjamin.  And you thought of Mark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You had been so angry when they had shut you in the mirror. At everyone. Even today you still were, anger and pain were old friends. Damien was supposed to be your best friend, but that had meant absolutely nothing in the end. Him and that bitch Celene had condemned you to something you wouldn’t have wished on your worst enemy. The Colonel had killed you, the evidence of his crime still a fresh wound in your stomach that never healed. Whatever Damien and Celene had become probably sported the scar, but you had no body to heal it. Your soul was bare, and the wound had gone right down through it. You had grown used to the pain. Your white shirt had been glued to your skin with the dried blood. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, your thoughts had turned to Mark. You had hated him most of all at first, angry at his entire failed plan for revenge. But all this time to think had brought sorrow into the equation. The Colonel had gone mad. Damien and Celene had had no choice you supposed - even if you still held hate in your heart for that Seer. And Mark. A poor heartbroken fool whose wife had hadn’t even had the decency to leave him before fucking his best friend. So you had forgiven them. . . Most of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And sometimes, like today, you entertained the thought of Damien coming back for you. Taking you out of this place. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You almost laughed. The idea was so hysterical that it might as well be a cruel joke. It was almost a guarantee that you weren’t even on Damien’s mind. You were forgotten. You probably weren’t even important enough to be a thought in the back of his mind. And then you were laughing, so hard that tears were running down your face in great big drops. You hugged yourself, your ribs beginning to ache. From a certain point of view the situation was so funny! So funny that you couldn’t stop the shrieking laughter that bubbled up from your throat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then laughing gave way to sobbing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You fell on your knees, hugging yourself even tighter to keep from falling apart. Then the sobs turned to screams. Screams of unbridled anguish that threatened to tear your throat apart. You gripped fistfuls of your own hair and pulled, trying to use physical pain to distract you from the mental torment. But it was useless. Your head was a whirlpool of negative thoughts, a volatile mix of the desire for someone to help you, the anger and lust for revenge, and a degree of self-blame for staying here and getting caught up in the situation. But you were Mark’s friend just as much as Damien was. How could you just leave after what had been done to him?</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m such a fool Mark, </span>
  </em>
  <span>you thought to yourself.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You raked your nails down your face, stinging red marks rising in their wake. You screamed even louder. You were hanging on so tight to that last shred of sanity that you possessed. You clung to it like a man lost at sea clings to a piece of wreckage. But as you screamed and cried you wondered if letting go would be such a bad thing? Losing your mind had been your bogeyman when you had first been imprisoned here, it had been the only thing you had. But as you sat there, trying desperately to hurt yourself, you seriously considered just letting go. Just sinking down into the comfort of insanity, where these thoughts couldn’t reach you.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Let go</span>
  </em>
  <span>, a voice whispered inside your head. And you were prepared to. You calmed yourself as you felt your fingers slipping from the piece of driftwood holding you aloft, as you started to slip into the abyss.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>SLAM!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>You yelped, clinging back on for dear life in fright. That had been the door. Someone was in the house, and by the sounds of their footsteps they were coming towards the shattered mirror. You picked yourself up from the floor, prepared to throw yourself against the glass and beg for their help, shame overcoming you at the thought of how easily you were going to give up. But as you rose and came face to face with the person that had saved you from giving into the madness you paused. You knew that face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was Mark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he was staring right at you with a look of utter devastation on his face. He was staring at you as if. . . as if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>saw you</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Not that dark shape that others saw, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He was scanning you, taking in every detail. His eyes lingered on that gunshot wound, and he winced.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked awful. He had bags under his eyes and dark circles to match that spoke of many sleepless nights. He had lost weight, and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in a month. He wore a red jacket, so some things never changed. And his eyes. His eyes were full of such sorrow that it broke your heart. You had never seen him like this. Never seen him vulnerable. Before, he had used his arrogance and pride to shield him, but now he was strppied bare and exposed to the world. Exposed to you.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And with all the questions that raced through your mind, all the conflicting emotions that threatened to cleave your heart in two, you could only think to ask, “Why did you come back?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he heard that. You, who had spent so many years in alone with your own screams, were heard. And you were heard by the very man that had been involved with this. But regardless, relief ran through you when he answered you. Oh, to hear a voice that wasn’t afraid. To hear a voice that wasn’t your own. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I missed you. . .” he trailed off, seeming to know that it was a poor reason to come back after all this time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You wanted to laugh again. But if you did you might again descend into that pit of madness and never be able to climb back out. And the thought of scaring him off with that insanity grounded you. Instead a single tear rolled out of your cheek. He had missed you? The idea that he had been thinking of you at all sent conflicting emotions racing through you. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You left me,” you whispered. “Damien left me. The colonel left me. Everyone left me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry (y/n).”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another tear fell. He had meant that apology with everything in his being. The Mark you had known wouldn’t have apologised if you had tortured him for it. What had happened to him? What had broken him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I should never have left you here (y/n),” he said with watery eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t forgotten you. He saw you. He heard you. He came back for you. Late perhaps, but he came back.   </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I forgive you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because you did. There was a voice that told you to try to reach out and grab him. Pull him in, take his body and be free. But you ignored it, because he came back. He hadn’t forgotten about you. And that whirlpool of pain and anger began to settle again. It wouldn’t be calm waters yet, not for a long time. You both still had issues to work through, but now you had each other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Take me with you?” you begged, letting the raw desperation creep into your voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nodded and reached out a hand, his fingertips stopping short when they gently thudded against the glass. You stared for a moment, unsure of what to do, and when you looked at his face for guidance he gave you a smirk. That smirk was so familiar that it nearly sent you sobbing again. Apprehensively, you reached out your hand too. It also thudded against the glass from your side, but there was something else. You could. . . </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> his fingertips against the glass. He was so warm. Mark worked his entire hand closer to the glass, never once breaking contact with your skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You nearly fainted when his hand reached right through the glass to fully grasp yours tightly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he pulled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And the feeling of euphoria when he pulled your hand right through the mirror towards him was indescribable. You cried out, unable to keep these feelings to yourself, tears of joy instead of anguish streaming down your face as you looked at him. He was pulling you through slowly, a look of intense concentration on his face. He never let go of your hand, and when your arm was fully free of the glass he used his other hand to grip onto it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And as you were pulled out into the biting air, you solidified. You were developing a body. You could feel the air and dust against your bare skin. Against your shoulder. Against your face. He didn’t take a moment to stop, only hooked his arm under your shoulders when your top half was out. Soon your legs followed, and with a final pull and an arm hooked under your legs, you were out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Actor fell to the floor, grunting as your weight fell on top of him. You did sob then, but this time it was because of the feeling of the air and dust, and most importantly the feel of Mark’s warmth underneath yours. You wriggled around, lying on top of him so that you were chest to chest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve missed you so much (y/n),” he whispered, pulling you closer to him as if afraid you would disappear, a hand gently running through your hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You drew back suddenly, going to feel those gunshot wounds. But you didn’t. They weren’t there anymore. All that existed in their place were scars. Mark traced them with his fingers, something like wonder on his face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You pulled yourself away from him and attempted to stand only to collapse again. After so long without a physical body learning to walk again was going to be difficult. Mark chuckled, whispering something that sounded like baby deer to himself. Instead of helping you up, he stood and hooked one arm under your shoulders and the other under your leg, carrying you in his arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You snuggled into his chest, murmuring about how he would never be alone again. He murmured back the same thing. </span>
</p>
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